


Heroic

by RonsGirlFriday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 17:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21413689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonsGirlFriday/pseuds/RonsGirlFriday
Summary: Mad-Eye Moody told Harry that Caradoc Dearborn vanished six months after the Order of the Phoenix photo was taken.His fate remains unknown.
Kudos: 8





	Heroic

> _"From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old Wizarding photograph...  
" 'That's Edgar Bones...brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family too, he was a great wizard...Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young...Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body...'  
\--Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 9_

* * *

** _Date: Unknown_ **

He reckoned you could call him brave, if you looked at it a certain way.

If you looked past the means and saw through to the end… if your eyes were blind to the man on the run and saw one who was trapped…

If you peered inside that tiny shack, situated on that lonely stretch of land and dripping with slushy snow like some grotesque, decrepit gingerbread house - if you peered through the grimy window and saw the man crouched in front of a fire that was dying even before it was born - well, you’d think it was a brave sort of man who chose to live like that.

Wouldn’t you?

This was what he told himself: that it took a certain kind of courage to live alone and forgotten, helpless in the face of certain danger, to remain friendless even when he felt the end becoming more and more certain by the day…and to have brought it all on himself. It took a sick kind of willpower, but there it was.

This was the thought that kept him moving from one place to another, seeking out deeper, darker, more remote locations. It was the thought that kept him from making a reality what was only, at that point, a rumor.

Sometimes he was so convincing in his own delusions that he who had forsaken his friends believed himself to be the abandoned one.

At least he still had the force of his warped convictions.

A man thought to be dead is truly friendless. He faces the world and its evils alone, and when the shadow finally knocks at the door no help will come. Nobody will mourn when there really is a body. He is no longer in anyone’s thoughts, except as a vague, sorrowful memory, a lost brother presumed fallen, an impalpable symbol of the cause.

Perhaps that was his purpose, if indeed life has a purpose. Maybe he was meant to fade away, and in doing so spur on the righteous anger of greater men. If that was his purpose, he supposed he was serving it as valiantly as could be expected.

And here was the thought that threatened to defeat him day after day… missing, he was beloved; once found, he would be loathed.

He had long since given up pondering what would become of him when the War ended, if he made it that far. If darkness prevailed, he would stay hidden - he was, at least, not such a coward that he would swear allegiance to evil. And if good prevailed, he would stay hidden, for he would not be welcomed back with open arms.

He would always be a dead man walking.

He lived like a ghost: avoided all contact with those who truly existed, left no signs of life behind, lost his voice from lack of use. He kept no possessions, save for a single scrap of newspaper.

In the beginning, he scavenged abandoned newspapers whenever he could. He would flip to the last page, where an ever-expanding column bore the headline “Dead and Missing.” Sometimes he saw names he recognized, and mourned with dry tears. The column had grown to encompass nearly the entire page the day he found what he was looking for:

_Dearborn, Caradoc - Missing, 3 months_

He felt puzzled at first, that they would wait three months to report it. But it only made sense - the Order wouldn’t want to draw unnecessary attention, and after all, the mission had been a complicated one. Much of it was to be done solo. So it stood to reason that nobody would realize something had gone wrong until long after he disappeared.

He stopped looking at newspapers after he found it.

_Dearborn, Caradoc - Missing_

He wondered why they even bothered to write “missing.” “Missing” was just a euphemism for “dead” in most cases.

The nightmares got worse after he found it.

_Dearborn, Caradoc_

That person was dead. He had a body, as miserable and pointless as it now was, but in his own heart, and in the minds of others, he was beyond all help.

And every time he stared at that scrap of paper, from the moment he found it until the ink grew so dull and smudged from constant folding and unfolding that he could barely read it, the realization solidified. That person was dead before it was printed. That person was dead before the mission, at a time when others counted on him to be very much alive. They never really knew him. They thought him brave and selfless, like them.

To be lost, he realized, had many meanings.

** _Date: Forgotten_ **

He wondered what he’d gotten himself into. He wondered if they knew how much they were asking. He wondered how long he would last.

He wondered if it was normal to be thinking these things, and what his companions would say if they knew of his doubts.

Surely they were thinking the same themselves. But if they were, they weren’t showing it as acutely as he felt it. The kids fresh out of school fancied themselves invincible and were too bold for their own good. The older, more experienced crowd seemed too accepting of the potential for death or worse. Caradoc was of an age where he valued his life and wasn’t finished living it. But self-preservation, he told himself, was an asset.

Perhaps all men weren’t meant to be heroes - even those who were talented, and yes, even those with good hearts and souls.

Caradoc shook his companions’ hands in greeting as they all poured into headquarters. When business was concluded, he made friendly small talk, to take his mind off what had just been discussed. And as they all jostled playfully and grouped together in front of the camera, he realized that these people were all willing to die for him. Was he willing to die for them?

As he forced a halfhearted smile onto his face, he realized he didn’t know the answer.

Everyone got a copy of the photograph. He took his home and ripped it up. Because if you looked past the smile and saw the suffering… if your eyes were blind to the crowd and saw only the lonely man trapped in his own hesitation…

Well, he reckoned you could call him a coward, if you looked at it a certain way.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 2010 one-shot I wrote for a collab that was originally posted at HPFF. We each wrote about different members of the original Order of the Phoenix, and I selected Caradoc Dearborn.


End file.
